Homemade Valentine's Saves $$

This year Misses is in preschool. Her class has 20 students in it, and Misses needed to take a Valentine to school for each of them. After a couple trips to the store, looking at the options and prices for Valentines, I decided to see if Misses could make her own.

Making Valentines is a great activity for my daughter. She loves to do all things crafty. Later that week, I was flipping through a magazine and saw a child stamping red hearts with a toilet paper roll. I instantly got excited. I know, I know, I'm a dork. I just love saving money.

I set forth to collect all the supplies we needed to make these cute Valentines. Luckily, I had everything we needed.

Supplies:
card stock
paint
toilet paper roll
marker

Instructions:
Cut the card stock in strips and then cut the strips in half. You are making a little post card Valentine. Then write Happy Valentine's Day! Next, bend the toilet paper roll into a heart shape. Have your child dip the roll into the paint, and stamp it onto the card.

 

 

 

Let them dry. If you want to add a piece of candy or pencil that is up to you. We added pencils by taping them to the back. The total cost of these Valentine's were $1.94 for the pencils, since I had all the other materials on hand. Not to mention, putting these together was a nice activity Misses and I were able to do together. 

Cheerio Snacks

Last Christmas, I made party mix for friends and family. I got a little over excited with the great cereal prices and now have 2 big boxes of plain Cheerios. My kids will not eat them plain. I will only eat them for breakfast with about a 1/4 cup of sugar added to them. You know, just enough to scrape it off the bottom of the bowl with each bite. That doesn't work for me right now, because I am trying to loose weight. So I turned to the trusty Pinterest to see what I could do with these Cheerios.

I had pinned this recipe awhile ago.

• 1 c. sugar
• 1 c. corn syrup
• 1 c. creamy peanut butter
• 1 t. vanilla
• 5 c. Cheerios (the original recipe called for Honey Nut)
   I added red chocolate drizzle to the top of mine for Valentine's Day

In a large sauce pan, combine sugar and corn syrup. Bring to boil over medium heat.
Allow mixture to boil for one minute and remove from heat.
Add peanut butter and vanilla to mixture and mix until smooth.
Add Cheerios and mix until all coated.
Drop mixture by spoonful onto waxed paper and allow to cool.

Makes approximately 2 dozen.

Thanks to http://kathiecooks.blogspot.com/2010/01/cheerio-treats.html for this recipe.

If I did the math correctly, each treat has roughly 168 calories. I figured one to be the serving.


Trail Mix with Cheerios
This recipe, I made up by adding ingredients I already had on hand.

Ingredients

2c. Plain Cheerios
.5c. Blueberry Craisins
.5c. Cherry Craisins
1c. M&M

Put all in a large resealable container and enjoy!